Second pair of eyes - cyanobacteria?

[Airedale.Reef]

Hey all,

I just wanted a second pair of eyes to check out this algae/bacteria on my sand bed. Can anyone confirm if this is in fact cyanobacteria? 

 

The tank is just a little over two months old. Here are my current parameters as of 9/5/22

 

Nitrate: 13.1

Phospate: 0.06

Salinity: 1.025 

dKH: 9.0

 

[Reefkid88]

Kind of looks like it. How much flow gets to that area ? 

[Airedale.Reef]

I would think there is plenty of flow in that area (Return pump pushing from the middle down, and MP10 in an 8 gallon). I ended up siphoning all of it out, and ended up conducting a 25% water change in the process. I'll continue to monitor and siphon as needed. It is more of a burnt orange color than red/purple so I am holding out for something other than Cyano. 

 

thanks! 

[sadie]

If it is cyano, I have found water changes makes it worse.  I had good luck doing a 2 day black out, then slowly bringing my lights back to where they were.  I did remove what I could every day.  Good luck.

[Airedale.Reef]

Thanks for sharing. If it continues or comes back full force, I will black out, and look into adjusting my light schedule. 

[mcarroll]

On 9/7/2022 at 8:12 PM, AiredaleReef said:

Thanks for sharing. If it continues or comes back full force, I will black out, and look into adjusting my light schedule. 

That is not the approach.

 

You more or less want to let this happen and get through it.   You don't stop it or get around it – basically it's just the first phase of your tank coming to life!!  👍

 

You should see some green algae sooner or later – then you're near the end.

 

How is your cleanup crew so far?

 

The only adjustment you might consider is (if you don't have corals) dimming the lights by about half.  You can turn them back up once you get corals.  (Which could be now!)

 

A blackout is counterproductive though.

 

On 9/6/2022 at 5:36 PM, AiredaleReef said:

Nitrate: 13.1

Phospate: 0.06

Salinity: 1.025 

dKH: 9.0

Seem like good numbers to me – retest sine you did a water change.

 

You really don't want PO4 going any lower than that, BTW.  Consider that your minimum, at least until the tank has matured and corals are all in place and growing nicely.  Test levels are much less crucial at that phase.

 

Can you post a full tank pic?